Chapter 12
Nerves attacked Audra the moment they crossed the bungalow’s threshold twenty minutes later. She slipped her suddenly sweaty hand from Kane’s and pressed it against her fluttering mid-section. Swallowing hard, she made for the mini-bar. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“There should be some bottles of Negro Modelo in there,” he said, his voice casual, though she could feel the heavy weight of his gaze on her back. “Sounds good about now.”
She plucked the beer from the fridge, grabbed a glass and glanced at him.
He shook his head and took the bottle from her outstretched hand. “Thanks.”
Turning away from him again, she poured herself a glass of chardonnay. Then she sipped at it, looking through the window at her view—the resort’s lush greenery then the ocean in the distance, all the way to the hazy horizon line. She thought of last night, when he’d turn that glass into a mirror.
Could someone have glimpsed them—but no, Kane wouldn’t put her at risk like that. Nobody could have seen in.
But the memory of their private moments made her shiver anyway and she fought back a wave of second and third thoughts. Last night had been—amazing. Why did she want to mess with success by insisting on another go, this time with the added pressure of an additional person to please? A person who’d had women without orgasm-anxiety.
Oh, God. What was the point of taking Kane Hathaway to her bed anyway?
His hand slid beneath her hair to cup her nape, sending a heated shiver down her spine.
Oh, yeah. That was the point of taking Kane Hathaway to her bed. The unforgettable, overwhelming physical pleasure of his touch.
“What you thinking about, baby?” he asked, giving her neck a little squeeze.
How it’s going to be when I’m filled up by you. “Just what a lovely spot this is,” she said in her perkiest voice.
He chuckled as if knowing she was talking to stall them beginning what they’d come here to do. Because overwhelming was the word and suddenly she wasn’t so concerned about pleasing Kane as she was worried about being engulfed by sexual passion. Devastated by what Kane Hathaway could do to her when they both found pleasure together. With each other.
When it was one-sided, there hadn’t been the danger of being consumed, she thought. Maybe she understood why he’d resisted joining her before. Because it was smart.
“Okay, those gears are really turning now,” he said.
“That nice older couple—”
“Birdie and Gordon Welch.”
“Coming to the resort all these years. That’s something, isn’t it? You Hathaways have a lot to be proud of here at Dragonfly Beach.”
“Yes.”
“A real legacy. And then to have the opportunity to pass it along to future generations…” In her babble, she’d forgotten that Kane had confided he didn’t really feel connected to the resort or the family business. That he was thinking of taking a different job out of the country.
Instead of looking at her, Kane was staring out the window too. His fingers, still curved around her neck, were relaxed and his expression was contemplative. “There’s other beautiful properties too, other Hathaway hotels and resorts, but I do think I…” His voice trailed off and he turned his head, smiled at her.
Her stomach fluttered again and her blood began to heat, speeding through her bloodstream with messages that second and third thoughts should be shut down, not surrendered to.
“But we didn’t come here to small talk, did we?” Kane asked.
“No,” she admitted.
Tilting his head back, he drained his beer and set the bottle aside. Then he pinned her with a look that made her insides quake and the place between her thighs swell. “Audie,” he said, “why don’t you take off your clothes for me?”
Pleaser Audra reached for the hem of her tunic, but then she stopped, realizing that she needed to take some power here. He couldn’t have it all or she for sure wouldn’t survive. “Why don’t you take off your clothes for me?” she countered.
His smile grew and his hands went to the buttons of his shirt. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Damn. Was that all it would have taken? But she had asked before and he’d walked away and—
Oh. My. God. Audra stared. He had the most perfect, chiseled chest of any man of all time. She’d been pressed against it, she’d felt the strength of him beneath her palms and measured the breadth of those shoulders with her eyes, and even caught glimpses of it in the hot tub. But now he was in her rooms, stripped from the waist up, and she had an entirely new appreciation.
Her breath backed up in her lungs and she remembered why she usually kept her distance from beautiful men like Kane. They made her feel anxious, like sitting down to an important exam in school, one for which she hadn’t studied hard enough. One that she might fail. Her insecurities sprang to life again, screaming like banshees.
Of course she knew that he could satisfy her, but what if it didn’t work the other way around?
Her damp palms slid down her thighs. She should stop this now. “Kane…”
He half-turned to toss the shirt on a nearby chair and that’s when she saw it, something as fascinating as those ridged muscles and copper nipples. When he straightened, he took one look at her face, raised a brow.
“Turn,” she said, twirling her finger.
With a smirk, he followed directions.
“What’s this?” she said, closing in on him. She lifted her hand to trace the interesting black lines that created a single figure on his shoulder.
He twitched at her touch, then he craned his neck. “That’s the reason I forbid you to get a tattoo.”
“You don’t like it?” The unfamiliar symbol fascinated her. She wanted to kiss it, lap at it with her tongue, trace it on a piece of paper so she’d never forget what it looked like on his flesh.
“My friend and I got inked on our shared eighteenth birthdays. We later found out the Chinese symbol that he bears on his back doesn’t say ‘Courage’ as he asked for, but is the character for ‘Onion.’”
She winced. “What’s yours mean?”
“I know what it’s supposed to mean. It’s a sigil—a symbol to manifest one’s desire.” He twitched again as she ran her fingertip over the long line and the shorter ones bisecting it, two creating angles and one curved like a cup. Three dots.
“What’s it supposed to mean?” She couldn’t help herself. Her lips pressed against those dots, three little kisses to remember her by.
He groaned. “‘Luck will follow me.’”
She smiled against it.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve waited years for the other shoe to drop. I’m sure someday someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and ask why I permanently inked on myself ‘I’ll be discontented all my days.’”
Audra decided to give in to desire and taste the sigil with her tongue. As she did, her hand slid around his waist and then she—boldly!—drew her palm over the ridge of flesh in his pants. “Do you feel discontented now?”
The hot length seemed to come alive in her hand. He groaned again, then spun away from her, holding out his palms as if warding her off. “You’ll make me come too soon, baby.”
Audra stepped back, smiling, feeling like she was ten feet tall and she had a million dollars in her pocket. Insecurities banished. “That’s right,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest so that her curled hands pressed against her tight, aching nipples. “You were going to take off all your clothes for me.”
Hers felt like the scratchiest of wools as she watched his hand move to unfasten the button on his jeans. Beneath his zipper she could see that fascinating bulge of heavy flesh. He stroked over the denim as she had, then found the tab and began opening the metal teeth.
She held her breath, only sucking in air when she began to see stars and because she didn’t want to miss a thing. Especially not now that he was slipping his fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers so he could shove both them and his pants down his thighs and past his knees and…
Well, she stopped looking at how that show ended to concentrate on his erection, thick and flushed, stretching upward. A drop of liquid shined on the head and the testicles at the base looked full and just as ready as the rest of him.
She thought she might be panting.
“Remember how you wanted photographs? That line item on the second list?” Kane asked, his voice amused. She didn’t know the expression on his face because she didn’t look away from that veined muscle that she wanted inside her. Madly.
“Boudoir photo shoot,” she corrected, her voice faint.
“You can take a picture of me, baby, and then maybe you won’t have to stare so hard now.”
At the very real snicker in his voice she glanced up. “Be careful, or I just might. Then who knows where your photo might end up?”
“I trust you, Audie. Go ahead if that’s what you need.”
What she needed was him. More of him.
“I…” She licked her lips. Swallowed hard. Tell him what you want.
“What’s on your mind, baby?” His voice turned deep and wicked. “Do you need to suck on your sugar Kane?”
Yes. She took a step forward before his words truly sank in. Then her gaze flew to his. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
He started laughing. “I needed to snap you out of your daze. Either that or give you a knife and fork.”
“What?” She sniffed. “No salt and pepper? Condiments?”
Before he stopped laughing he’d stepped forward and swept her up in his arms.
All that hot skin. His scent. She buried her nose against his neck and breathed him in. Then he crossed into the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed, following her down so they could roll around like puppies. All the worry she’d felt before, all the nervousness, and the sense of impending calamity vanished.
She’d never known you could have fun in bed. They nuzzled and played and nipped until she was as naked as he and then she caught his gaze and crawled down his big body. “I’m going to do it,” she said, trying not to giggle. “I’m going to suck on my big sugar Kane.”
But instead of laughing right back at her, he went still, his green eyes going dark, the bones in his face seeming to harden. Making Audra want to suck on her big sugar Kane just that much more.
So she did, even though nothing felt funny any longer. Still, she wanted to tease him and she tried, her tongue sliding down to follow the heavy vein as her hand cupped and caressed the balls below. Yet with his eyes burning into her, every move, every breath, every heartbeat felt serious.
Important.
Troublesome, because she didn’t know what it could mean.
Closing her eyes, she pulled him into her mouth, as much as she could take, tonguing and sucking, his taste and his scent, salty and masculine, making her pulse race. She was wet between her thighs, aching and swollen and she rubbed her hard nipples against the hair on his thigh, the slight abrasion delicious.
He groaned and his large hand dug into her hair, pulling a little as she bobbed up and down on his shaft.
Words poured from his mouth but she couldn’t hear them over the thundering of her heart in her ears. She supposed he liked this. She loved it. She wanted to take him all the way, and she drew on him harder, deeper, imagining—
She yelped as strong hands tucked under her arms and drew her off. “What—” she began, but then his mouth was on hers and she was being kissed as if kissing was a complete sex act in itself. His fingers threaded hers and his big, hot body lay half on her and she thought she might die of lack of air until he lifted his head to stare into her face.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, as if to himself.
She was afraid to answer anyway, because it was beginning to dawn on her what was happening here. What might have started happening the first moment that “Mr. Jones” knocked on her door and entered with his tools.
Such glorious tools, she thought, as he moved between her thighs and rocked his hips, the tip of his erection dragging over her clit and then teasing at the entrance to her body. There was a condom covering him now and she wished they were bare to bare, like they could be if—
“Look at me, baby,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened, lashes fluttering and he filled her vision, that gorgeous face of the man who’d been her sexual making…and the one she suspected might be her undoing—in an entirely other way. His fingers tightened on hers and then he was sliding into her by torturous increments.
“Kane,” she whispered.
A muscle flexed in his jaw and he buried his head against her neck as she tilted her hips to take more of him inside. He drove in to the root, groaning against her skin. Then he began to move, pulling out and diving back inside.
His mouth moved, imprinting his words onto her flesh.
You’re so tight…I could be inside you forever…that’s right, widen your thighs…have I told you how your kiss is the sweetest taste I’ve ever experienced…oh, baby, you’re so wet…I can’t last…I can’t do forever, even though I might want to…
She was breathing hard, desire pumping in her veins. Squirming, she rubbed her nipples against his hard chest, moaning at the sweet friction.
Kane’s hips double-timed, his rhythm becoming more desperate with each thrust. Then he let go of one of her hands and his slid between their bodies to find that sensitive flesh at the top of her sex. He managed to slow his pace as he toyed there, kissing her again as he rolled and rubbed.
“Oh, God,” she said against his mouth.
“Come, baby,” he said against hers, rubbing harder. “Come so good.”
And she did, waves of pleasure rolling over her as her toes curled and goose bumps broke out everywhere. Kane groaned as her inner muscles milked him, and then he was deep in her body, his shoulders shuddering as he climaxed.
He broke the kiss and lifted his head, his gaze still dark, his focus sharp as always. The intensity of it made her melt into the mattress and if her world hadn’t already turned on its axis, it would have right then.
Kane smiled, as if satisfied by something he saw, then he brought his mouth low again, pecking her on the nose like they hadn’t just had wild sex. Like he was saying goodbye to a casual friend.
Like she hadn’t just lost her heart to him.
Then he was off her and strolling toward the bathroom. She watched the whole way, not even trying to be subtle about it, because this might be her last chance to get a good look at a naked Kane Hathaway. It was imperative to remember everything, even though she knew it was going to hurt so bad when she had only a memory to warm her at night.
Now she knew exactly why she’d worn that damn wedding dress for days and days. It went to show that she was superstitious too—the thing had been a talisman of sorts. A protection against this terrible outcome…this terrible, terrible outcome of falling in love with Kane Hathaway.
A man who had consciously or unconsciously already told her everything she needed to know about what might be in store for them. I can’t do forever.
Kane didn’t rush to gather the scattered parts of his mind after that screamer of a climax. Two screaming climaxes, actually, one for him and one for Audra. She lay against his side now, her head on his shoulder as he drew designs on her upper arm with lazy fingertips. His eyes closed and he dozed, sliding easily into post-sex lethargy.
No good would come of thinking too hard right now.
Time passed and he opened his eyes to find that early evening was falling, the room in shadows. Audra was sleeping, her silky hair spread over his chest. Damn woman slayed him. Not just with her body and her incredible mouth, but with the way she’d gotten into Tracy Smith’s head.
Sugar Kane.
The grin on his face nearly split it in half and he’d call up Alec and tell him the whole story—well, not the end of the sugar Kane story—if his cousin wasn’t concerned about him getting too close to Audra.
There was nothing to worry about on that score. One of her pretty feet was already out the door, her head wrapped in plans for a brand-new business. Shortly, she’d be back in LA, living la vida flora. Finding her future and the man she’d share it with.
She made a noise as if to concur and shifted, turning over to present her back to him, her head now buried on a pillow instead of his shoulder.
Even in sleep she was already moving away.
Was it wrong to wish he’d left at least a single mark from his gripping fingers on her creamy skin? Yet from here it looked as perfect as always, lickable and kissable and somehow…his.
No.
To escape the aberrant thought, he climbed carefully from the bed and padded to the living room where he found his jeans and yanked them on. His other clothes he left where they were, evidence that he hadn’t dreamed those moments when she’d come up behind him to torture him with her heat and her hand as she inspected his tattoo.
Luck will follow me.
Or
I’ll be discontented all my days.
Scowling now, he crossed the room barefoot and opened the slider that led to the bungalow’s small patio. What they called Hibiscus Hill was an elevated section of the property and the six bungalows situated there looked out over the verdant acreage and then the Pacific. Though each of the standalone structures were within a shout of each other, the surrounding foliage and the placement of windows and doors extended the feeling of seclusion.
Many visitors liked to stay nearer the action of the big pool, lobby bar, and fancy dining room, but to Kane, these resort accommodations felt the most restful. A person could think here. Assess. Plan.
Or just relax, as he supposed Birdie and Gordon were doing, in their bungalow just a stone’s throw away.
Smiling, he thought of the older couple and their fifty-five years visiting the resort. Audra’s words floated through his brain. You Hathaways have a lot to be proud of here at Dragonfly Beach. A real legacy. And then to have the opportunity to pass it along to future generations…
Taking a new job wouldn’t mean the end of any of that, he reminded himself. Amber and Jessie would continue on in the family tradition and there was other extended family working for the company. He would look in on his sisters once in a while, maybe scheduling an annual vacation in Santa Barbara while during the rest of the year, he’d…
Miss them like hell.
Miss this place like hell squared.
But he was still Mr. Detached, right? With that void inside him that he needed to fill somehow or else suffer a lifetime of discontent.
Just as Tracy had predicted—I curse you to be alone the rest of your life.
A sudden urge to lift the nearby lounge chair and hurl it as far as he could spiked inside him. His hands fisting against the raging impulse, he sucked in a deep breath, and—
Smelled smoke.
He tasted it on his tongue too and he froze, trying to pinpoint the source.
Could the scent from the kitchen grills make it to here? Was there a special event barbecue he’d forgotten about? Had a guest sneaked out of the one designated smoking area at the resort? Because there was a hint of tobacco in the air too.
Reaching for his phone, he realized he’d left it on the nightstand by Audra’s bed and hurried inside to grab it. She woke, blinking at him as she came up on one elbow. “What?”
“I smell smoke,” he said, then ran out the bungalow’s front entrance, following his nose.
Birdie Welch rushed right into his path. “Kane,” she said, her hands clutching at him. The word she said next nearly made his heart seize. “Fire.”
“Stay here,” he told the older woman and raced for the elderly couple’s bungalow, every step seeming to take a year, giving plenty of time for his racing imagination to work much too well. In California, fire could mean a quick descent into hell with terrible cost and even more terrible loss. Homes. Memories. Lives.
The smell grew stronger as he reached the Welch bungalow and he flew over the threshold, his gaze sweeping from left to right. Then he saw them—flames—on the patio beyond the glass slider. They leaped from a pile of something—newspaper?—stacked on the metal-framed table. Gordon was there too, trying to smother the fire with a bath towel.
Shit.
Throwing open the door, he snatched the fire extinguisher off the clips on the outer wall. “Move away, Gordon,” he shouted, already pointing the device’s hose. “I’ve got this.”
It was out in a matter of moments. But he was breathing raggedly all the same, interrupted by a cough here and there, as he stared at the foam and ashes for several long minutes, afraid to look away in case of a flare-up.
Suddenly, a hand thrust an uncapped bottle of cold water at him. “Here.” Audra ran a palm down his back as if checking for injuries. “Are you all right?”
“I may have lost a few lives, but yeah.” He sucked down half the liquid then looked at her. She wore his shirt, and, probably, nothing else.
Instead of commenting on that, he looked past her, into the bungalow. “Birdie and Gordon?”
“While you were dealing with the fire, I pointed them to my place.” She pried the fire extinguisher from his grip and set it aside. “Amber’s heading straight over there with a tray of tea and cookies.”
“Good.” He felt shaky as all hell and maybe Audra realized that, because she slid her arm around his waist and urged him inside. “You need to sit down.”
He resisted. “I want to stay close,” he said, glancing at the charred remains.
“It’s out, Kane.” She propelled him through the glass slider and toward the couch to push him onto the cushions. “There’s people on their way to take care of the mess.”
Adrenaline crash made his stomach churn and a dull headache began to pound. Even as he’d tackled the fire and realized the threat was minimal, one part of his mind had continued racing, painting visions of the worst scenario—The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach burning, their guests and his sisters fleeing for their lives, the legacy built by his ancestor and those that followed destroyed.
And he’d cared.
He’d fucking cared so much his brain was blown all over again.
Running a shaking hand through his hair, he glanced over at Audra, sitting beside him. “Did they say what happened?”
Her palm rubbed gentle circles on his back. “Apparently Gordon loves to read newspapers. He bought up every one at the newsstand earlier today and brought them back here for a nice long read while enjoying a cigar he’s been banned by his doctor from smoking.”
“Hell.”
“Birdie’s already read him the riot act, so you don’t have to. He thought he was going to get away with his little indulgence—he knew she was visiting the resort boutiques. But she came back earlier than expected, surprising him so he dropped the cigar onto his stack of papers.”
Thus changing Kane’s world. It had only taken the thought of his legacy going up in smoke for him to find his infamous detachment about the place had vanished. This Hathaway was here to stay.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kane told Audra, his eyes dry and stinging from the smoke. It seemed important to make the declaration out loud. “I’m staying right here in Santa Barbara and sticking with the family business.”
Before she could respond, a group of workers came rushing through the front entrance. After briefing them, they bustled about as Audra returned to her bungalow. Then the head housekeeper showed, and after a look around, assured him the elderly couple could return in an hour. She smiled at him. “You saved the day.”
Gordon’s little accident might have saved Kane from making a big, big mistake.
Taking it slow, he made his own return to Audra’s bungalow. Knowing she had company, he turned the knob and walked straight in, then stood in the small foyer to look over the scene.
Birdie and Gordon sat side-by-side on the couch. A blanket had been tucked around their legs, and as he watched, Audra poured more tea into the cups set before them on the low table. Amber half-sat on the nearby desk, one leg swinging, chattering like a magpie about probably nothing, as a distraction for the older couple.
Audra laughed at something his sister said and he looked her over again, noting she’d dressed now and that his shirt lay draped over the bed he could see through the half-closed door. He wished she was still wearing his clothes. Or better yet, none. In that bed. With him.
Horny bastard, he told himself. But adrenaline could juice the sex drive, everybody knew that. And right now he wanted Audra’s bare skin against his like he wanted his next breath.
But good manners forced him to smother the desire to throw out the old people and his very own sister. Instead, he stepped into the living area and smiled. “Everyone doing okay?”
All eyes swung to him and Birdie and Gordon spoke at once, their apologies effusive.
“Hey,” he said. “It was an accident and damage was minimal. Don’t worry, you’ll be back in your place soon.”
Audra approached him with a cup of steaming tea and he realized he must smell like an ashtray. “Sorry. I should grab a shower—”
“Later,” she said. “And have a cookie, too.”
He wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but he took both gratefully. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” She patted his shoulder again and then went back to the sofa, kneeling on the rug to talk softly to Birdie, her hand on the older woman’s knee.
So beautiful. So warm and caring.
So everything any man would want in his life.
And all he’d done was fuck her, giving her physical release when she deserved so much more.
Maybe he made a sound. Maybe she was just that attuned to him. But she looked up and glanced over, a ghost of a smile on her mouth.
Do you need to suck on your sugar Kane?
Good God, he’d said that crude thing earlier, to that beautiful, classy face, trying to…take away from the moment because it was getting all too damn serious and because…because he’d been afraid.
He’d been afraid he was falling in love with her.
And now he remembered her laughing at him after her initial outrage and wisecracking about salt and pepper and condiments and he knew…he knew…
He had fallen in love with her.
“You okay?” Amber stood at his elbow. He’d been so engrossed in his own thoughts he’d been unaware of her. “Bro?”
He gave his sister a half-smile. “Sure. I’m great.” A great big fool because he’d gone ahead and done the love thing he’d never once believed could happen to him. What had he said to Alec about it? I never put anyone else’s welfare before my own and I think that’s pretty much a given if a man’s going to give his heart away.
Yet still he’d lost his.
Amber cleared her throat. “I heard about your meet-up with Tracy Smith this afternoon.”
Christ, he’d almost forgotten. “Is she really having her wedding here?”
“Yep, on Sunday. Ceremony on Dragonfly Beach and reception in the Lagoon Room after.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should maintain a list of people who aren’t welcome to rent the amenities. The special events coordinator could check it before bookings. I know I’d put that crazy woman at the top of the no-go list.”
“It’s okay. I don’t care that we’re taking her money.”
“Jessie made me promise not to tell the chefs about her. She’s afraid Hathaway loyalty might cause them to sprinkle her food with something that would make the wedding night very unpleasant.”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Right, don’t do that. It’s really fine that she’s here. Remember? I broke it off with her, she didn’t break my heart.”
“Cursing you to a lifetime of loneliness is pretty extreme payback.”
“I think she was hoping for a lifetime of celibacy,” he said.
Amber grinned and elbowed him in the ribs. “Well, at least you proved that wrong.”
“Yeah.” He grinned too, to convince her he was all right.
“And now that I’m sure you’re doing okay I’ll give you another piece of news.” His sister glanced down at the toes of her shoes.
Oh, shit. That was an Amber-tell for trouble ahead. “What’s that?” he asked, wary now.
“Mom and Dad are coming in for your birthday.” She glanced up. “Surprise!”
“Well.” He blew out air, ran his hand through his hair. “We haven’t seen them in…”
“Two years. It wasn’t our idea, by the way.” She grimaced, watching him with anxious eyes. “Out of the blue they called Jessie and told her they’d be visiting.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’ll be, uh, good to catch up,” he lied. “Seeing them again…” His gaze slid over to Audra, lovely and deserving of the very best. Seeing them again will remind me of who I came from and exactly why I can’t have her.